The Nightfall Parade | | A Moon & Stars Floor Pillow : :

I'm so excited today is the start of the Nightfall Parade! For the next two weeks I'll share as many projects as I can make, along with new tutorials & Giveaways all featuring my Nightfall fabric collection for Art Gallery Fabrics! I hope you feel inspired, follow along, & join in!



I'm kicking the parade off with a Moon & Stars floor pillow, designed to showcase both colorways of my Lunation moon phase and Luminaries star prints! This over-sized pillow is made up of sixteen teensy QAYG quilt block finished to fit a fluffy 22" down pillow insert that can be used to decorate any room, year round, but I especially love it for this time of year!



Today is all about the pretty pictures and fabric & design details, but tomorrow I'll share a tutorial for my quick quilt as you go mini log cabins along with instructions for piecing together these adorable quilt blocks to make your own pillow top!





These blocks can be easily adapted to make a quilt rather than the floor pillow I'm sharing today. You may remember the peek I shared here of the QAYG quilt blocks I made using this same method to feature my owls back when I was stitching up Nightfall samples for Quilt Market? Well, I plan to finally photograph the finished quilt to share during the parade for some added inspiration to go along with tomorrow's tutorial!



Nightfall lends itself really well to fussy cutting -- the owls, dragonflies, Moon Stories bunny print, and these phases of the moon are all designs that are perfect for careful cutting to frame the way I have here!



My Luminaries stars have quickly become my new favorite low volume print to use in place of a light colored solid. Combined with the moons creates a really beautiful themed pillow!

Can you see the subtle star pattern that emerges when you view this pillow as a whole?



How about in this mockup that I made for the tutorial? A bit easier to see, right? I love fun designs like this! Just a few measurement tweaks and this pattern would certainly make an amazing quilt!



To finish the pillow I used more of both Lunation colorways for the backing. I spray basted the large cuts of fabric to scrap pieces of quilt batting for an added layer of cushion, and bound the inner raw edge of each with some leftover denim binding. Simple & easy!



I love to bind my pillows, but you can finish your pillow top however you prefer. For this one I used more leftovers, this time from the Easy Tote bags I made and shared last week. I know this binding will hold up well, it's heavy weigt feels extra sturdy. After this first time trying it for binding, I do recommend cutting the strips at a larger width than the standard  2.5". I think just a half inch would have made a big difference and would have been much easier to attach. Just something to keep in mind! The bound edges of the pillows I make seem to show the most wear overtime, so I know I'll be reaching for more of this heavy weight denim when it comes time to bind the pillows to surely come!



I hope you enjoyed this first Nightfall Parade project! I'll be back tomorrow with the tutorial, thanks for visiting friends!  ♡ Maureen

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* You can find the list of online retailers currently carrying Nightfall under my SHOP my Fabrics page -----> https://maureencracknellhandmade.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html